All about Tricksters

[Joerg]

42 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Cephalopods may be so prominent in That Other Chaosium Game that they never found a home in Glorantha. Someone should ask Sandy.

No need - there is an island off the shore of Vithalash which has a giant Walktapus sleeping beneath the waves. The island shares the name of a ruin on Pohnpei... Whichever evil star(s) spawned that one probably were cast out of the sky along with the Sky Terror. (There are also Deep Ones beneath the Kahar Sea.)

Missing Lands mentions that the (sapient) sperm whales have some sapient opposition by giant cephalopods. Not that surprising given the abundance of intelligent fish - even at a rate of one in a million, intelligent fish may outnumber every other intelligent life forms of the seas grouped together.

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As Tanith Lee observes, "to laugh under the sea was a painful and stupid exercise only rarely indulged." Of course the extinct kindreds may well have been the frolicsome ones but in general the survivors' emotional economy isn't really all that forgiving of excess.

On the other hand, sharks are notorious for their toothy smiles. Their curiosity makes them bite any object that somehow awakens their interest. A possible candidate for a Trickster of the Seas.

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Heler in his bright and leaping phases may be as close as some of them get to a god of subversion or even irony. Golod's relations with Trickster are complicated. I wonder if these are the kind of people who dourly acknowledge Fate Rune.

Given their bleak afterlife prospects, dour acknowledgement of fate sounds like a Triolini trait.

The Keet Migration myth may be the response to the trick the keet sage Kerendak played absentmindedly on Endaralath, making him too light to rejoin his home body of water.

Missing Lands p.20 knows Endaralath as the Sea King of the Togaron Seas, with two spouses - Ermanthver and Sshorg. Apparently, the curse of lightness was lifted, as Endaralath is reported to swim around with his "court" of Ludoch and other subjects in the Sshorg current. This makes Endaralath's experience of separation from the Ocean different from Heler's.

 

21 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

The old Spawn of Sokazub myth had cephalopods as spawn of Molakka, although the Gloranthan Sourcebook claims that Tholaina spawned them by coupling with a darkness god.

A species may have several ancestors. Both these versions and the Varchulanga origin aren't mutually exclusive except for some first generation individuals.

Also, given the biological sex flexibility of both Hsunchen and Water deities, the darkness entity coupling with Tholaina may very well have been Molakka. In case of external fertilization, the question which partner provided sperm and which one provided the eggs may be philosophical rather than practical, too.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Joerg

[g33k]

On 12/6/2019 at 4:05 AM, Eff said:

... Harrek ... is substantially angrier ... 

*eep!*

Note that in character-generation -- even if you fought on Harrek's side -- you can end up with the Passion, "Fear: Harrek the Berserk"

[g33k]

6 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'd imagine Gloranthan octopodes would be associated with Magasta (although actually descended from Triolina, which all mortal sea life is), and so therefore decidedly un-comical beings. Just my take.

As noted in this thread, many Tricksters are deadly-serious & "decidedly un-comical."

Also, the essence of Trickster is to flout convention and contravene the norms.  An association with Magasta is hardly something Trickster-proof.

(my two bolgs)

[davecake]

19 hours ago, None said:

What other variations of tricksters and what other cults exist.

Read the Eurmal write up in the Sartar Companion for HUGE info on the variety of Tricksters. The GaGoG write up is not wildly divergent. 

[davecake]

On 12/6/2019 at 6:37 PM, Bill the barbarian said:

Spoilers would be ever so nice community.  that is supposed to be a hidden plot line in the game... and folk are still paying good money for the the two modules for which this is relevant.

Any current day group of ogres that may or may not exist is a plot line - that the Red Cow have historically been plagued by ogres is common knowledge within the clan. 

So not a spoiler, other than in the sense of Checkhov noting they have a firearm permit. 
 

[davecake]

On 12/6/2019 at 9:21 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

Perhaps the most (in)famous Hero is Arkat, who died like seven times in his struggle against Nysalor. He returned again and again from various hells despite being mortal.

Source? I’ve only heard directly of him dying once (at Kartolin, so Harmast had to bring him back). I don’t doubt the could have died other times (and been brought back by Resurrection or less hero quests), just never heard of it. 

[None]

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

I recall seeing a list of the trickster aspects worshiped in the Slontos temple: Missing Lands p.35:

I think the same list can be found the Eurmal cult writ-up in Sartar Companion.

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

Both the Aldryami and the Mostali have an entire subspecies of Tricksters - the sprites, and the gremlins. (And gobblers, too - how could I forget about these?)

I think I can guess what sprites, and gremlins but gobblers? Do they eat everything they see or something?

--

Turns out I remembered wrong. I looked up the cult write-up in the Sartar Companion and noticed that Tricksters do get examples for rune powers. It's the subcults that are one per shrine (although they're treated a bit differently than other cult's subcults, I think I remember other cults only allowing one sub-cult per person, tricksters don't have that limit).

It's Devotees that are realy different. There I found Killer Boy, Dead Eye, Downboy and Hisfault.

(For some reason tricksters don't have Hero Forms just prescribed roles?)

I feel a bit silly now. Oops.

[davecake]

On 12/7/2019 at 1:42 AM, Joerg said:

A trick is a trick. That's disorder.

Actually, deception is probably more Illusion, as the opposite of Truth.

 

On 12/7/2019 at 1:42 AM, Joerg said:

Pamalt tricked the Artmali (who were admittedly acting as assholes at the time). His defense against Desero's Horde (which was repeated by Hon Hoolbiktu against the Six-Legged Empire) was a worthy feat of Disorder, too, at least in my book. And the masterpiece of creating the Necklace which counteracted the destruction of his allies was played on Chaos, which makes it an upstanding action. Yet a use of a trick.

So, I've reread Revealed Mythology looking for suggestions that support this interpretation, and I'm basically pretty baffled. I am assuming that this interpretation relies largely on the term 'Great Spirit Trick', which I interpreted as a 'skilfull/special way of doing something' rather than deception, because I can't really see any evidence of deception in context - Pamalt seems to find a clever way of defeating Chaos and the (by then, thoroughly corrupted by Vovisibor) Artmali, but deception does not seem to be involved. So that is extremely flimsy. 

His defence against Desero's Horde seems to be.. not fighting them? It takes a pretty odd mind set to think of NOT fighting as Disorderly. Attempting to avoid combat seems to be directly an invocation of Harmony even! And creating the Necklace is, again, a great feat of, if anything Harmony and cooperation. 

This is where this 'any act of change is the Trickster' nonsensical line of reasoning gets you - calling acts of Harmony Disorder, Truth as Lies, Black as White etc. You've certainly managed to convince me that your reasoning is flawed enough that pursuing it only leads into further confusion and error - the argument isn't just flimsy, but directly contradictory. 

You've essentially defined Trickster so broadly that:

- culture heroes who define the right way to do things are all also part Trickster

- acts of Harmony or Truth can be Trickster acts

- while Trickster is known for being thoughtless and contradictory, using cleverness to benefit all is also an act of Trickster nature.

I guess defining Trickster nature so broadly it is possessed even by the least Trickster gods doing the least Trickster acts is a Trickster sort of achievement but... 

 

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, davecake said:

Source? I’ve only heard directly of him dying once (at Kartolin, so Harmast had to bring him back). I don’t doubt the could have died other times (and been brought back by Resurrection or less hero quests), just never heard of it. 

It's called heroquesting in or through the Underworld, and if any individual has done so, it is Arkat.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, davecake said:

Actually, deception is probably more Illusion, as the opposite of Truth.

Illusion may be a means (there is another way of deception by presenting a selection of Truth, something that Lhankor Mhytes and Irrippians are masters of), but Disorder is the result. You can apply other runic applications to lying, too. Admittedly hard to explain with Stasis, obvious with Change, possible with Separation (Death), you may seed and grow lies (Fertility), it requires Harmony to find the resonance that makes your opposition follow your mislead...

 

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So, I've reread Revealed Mythology looking for suggestions that support this interpretation, and I'm basically pretty baffled. I am assuming that this interpretation relies largely on the term 'Great Spirit Trick', which I interpreted as a 'skilfull/special way of doing something' rather than deception, because I can't really see any evidence of deception in context - Pamalt seems to find a clever way of defeating Chaos and the (by then, thoroughly corrupted by Vovisibor) Artmali, but deception does not seem to be involved. So that is extremely flimsy. 

I can't help but think of Pamalt as being way too clever, too genre-savvy. But that is a trait he shares with Tada and Belintar. Or Prometheus.

Tada isn't judged for his tricks, after all he received the final judgement at the claws of Ragnaglar. Although, even in death, he tricked his opponent by leaving his Grizzly Portions around.

Belintar was accused of being a Trickster among others by the Volsaxi already at his arrival, and that judgement didn't change with his disappearance. A good portion of the Sartarite ancestors and the clans they created are with the Volsaxi on this issue. The Lunars are, after their experience at the Building Wall.

Jar-eel's dismemberment exposed the transitory nature of Belintar's existence as the Godking - almost a parallel to Avanadpur.

 

True, nothing of this applies to Pamalt yet. But consider - he brings his very own Rune into the game. That's a cheat if I ever saw one.

 

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His defence against Desero's Horde seems to be.. not fighting them? It takes a pretty odd mind set to think of NOT fighting as Disorderly.

Why, thank you. (No offense taken at all.)

The cycle of conquest and struggle was the order of the period, and Pamalt broke it. Whatever conditions are brought to Pamalt, he imposes his own set of rules.

BTW, I disagree with the implication in RQG that there is one half of the Power Runes that has mainly negative associations.

We all love harmony? Listen to the second movement (Andante) of  Haydn's Symphony #94 ,  an almost perfect presentation of eventless harmony (Bernstein does his utmost to give it dynamics) until that timpani strike in the 16th pulse of the theme, and you get a musical impression of how you play a trick and create disorder on a foundation of harmony.

That's a trick in my ears. And the very slight moment of trickery puts it stamp on the entire opus - in German literature, nobody refers to the symphony by the number, but by the timpani strike. That doesn't even occur in the main movement.

There are more tricks hidden in this work. One to my perception is that the symphony ends without the fourth and final movement, taking the dance number (the stately minuette classically used for the third movement) as the conclusion.

 

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Attempting to avoid combat seems to be directly an invocation of Harmony even! And creating the Necklace is, again, a great feat of, if anything Harmony and cooperation.

Harmony on the inside, Disorder on the outside. Maybe it is me thinking in terms of thermodynamics, but this event creates a huge amount of universal entropy in the service of a local reduction of entropy.

I don't want to persuade you of my point of view here, but I want to make you see where I am coming from.

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This is where this 'any act of change is the Trickster' nonsensical line of reasoning gets you - calling acts of Harmony Disorder, Truth as Lies, Black as White etc. You've certainly managed to convince me that your reasoning is flawed enough that pursuing it only leads into further confusion and error - the argument isn't just flimsy, but directly contradictory. 

I am describing the means of these acts as tricks, and correctly so. That's the wisdom of the fool in Shakespeare's plays. It is the ugly mirror that needs to be held up to authority, as authority itself is a trick. Money is a trick.

To take a real world example: Stock exchanges are Tricksters' paradises, and they succeed in persuading us (or at least our glorious leaders) that they are absolutely necessary for our survival while they increase their parasitism to a point where the host becomes an empty hull and its livelihood having been burnt for the pleasure and power trips of the few.

It has been decreed unthinkable to consider alternatives. And so we keep sliding down on the sustainability spiral, with the only things rising are the parasites' profits, and temperature and sea levels.

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You've essentially defined Trickster so broadly that:

- culture heroes who define the right way to do things are all also part Trickster

Prometheus. It's an archetype.

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- acts of Harmony or Truth can be Trickster acts

See Haydn's symphony #94, above, or rather: listen to it. Contraryness and (well-dosed) dissonance is what creates great music. (That dissonance is addictive, you step up from slightly more complicated and disorderly stuff like this to ever more experimental stuff, like 20th century classical music or progressive rock, or metal.) Harmony is what creates pleasant, meaningless music.

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- while Trickster is known for being thoughtless and contradictory, using cleverness to benefit all is also an act of Trickster nature.

Prometheus again.

 

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I guess defining Trickster nature so broadly it is possessed even by the least Trickster gods doing the least Trickster acts is a Trickster sort of achievement but...

Sure, this has gone a little meta. It is fun to describe the entirety of the Gloranthan body of myths as a series of tricks. And it works, as the nature of myths is both normative and disruptive, giving a moral lesson while baffling the audience.

 

But I am quite serious in the requirement of dissonance and in the negative effect on the entire outside of the circle/ring/necklace/whatever. It is a great act of harmony to deflect an enemy to someone else?

 

The Ritual of the Net is a huge trick, an ambush, and then the participants of the ambush get to observe (they mustn't look away) bondage snuff sex creating a new overlord monster - Time.

(And little wonder that Eurmal couldn't hold on to his thread, he desperately needed at least one of his hands in his nether regions.)

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Joerg

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, davecake said:

I’ve only heard directly of him dying once (at Kartolin, so Harmast had to bring him back). I don’t doubt the could have died other times (and been brought back by Resurrection or less hero quests), just never heard of it.

The obvious one is his transformation into a troll. As noted in the Guide p.721, he went through a Complete Dismemberment, even replacing his heart. Also Trollpack p.19, "Kwaratch Kang offered Arkat the relief and rescue he needed, and he led the human into the well of creation to be reformed, as had been done before, and then Garazaf Hyloric chanted her awesome spells to make Arkat be born of her, anew into the known world, a Mistress Race troll."

What's different at Kartolin is that he is captured in a way that he could not escape (just like Sheng trapped in the Lunar Hell). It required Harmast to rescue him.

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by jajagappa

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

What's different at Kartolin is that he is captured in a way that he could not escape (just like Sheng trapped in the Lunar Hell). It required Harmast to rescue him.

His surface cult orientation at that moment is a little controversial but I wonder if they forced him into a paradox where the humakt portions would have overridden his central desire and refused any resurrection effort. Might be worth some meditation on how LBQ interacts with that. 

[scott-martin]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

To take a real world example: Stock exchanges are Tricksters' paradises, and they succeed in persuading us (or at least our glorious leaders) that they are absolutely necessary for our survival while they increase their parasitism to a point where the host becomes an empty hull and its livelihood having been burnt for the pleasure and power trips of the few.

Oh hey. 

But before my flight boards I have never scratched a culture hero and not found the previous generation's trickster close to the origin. To bring a new order you first have to destroy the old . . . Alexander the Great as last of the Persian kings and first of the new. What this means when the old order has broken down on its own (possibly due to surfeit of tricksterism) is interesting. What is trickster rebelling against then? "Chaos," maybe. Disorder emerges from the void. Nihilism.

[jajagappa]

6 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

His surface cult orientation at that moment is a little controversial but I wonder if they forced him into a paradox where the humakt portions would have overridden his central desire and refused any resurrection effort. Might be worth some meditation on how LBQ interacts with that. 

One interesting aspect of the troll dismemberment is that other "Arkats" arrived to keep Kwaratch Kang/Zorak Zoran from doing the dismemberment his way. But Gbaji may have exploited a paradox where Arkat was forced to imprison himself as you note - Arkat Humaktsson blocks or kills other Arkats, to keep the newly dead Arkat from escaping Hell. 

[davecake]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:BTW, I disagree with the implication in RQG that there is one half of the Power Runes that has mainly negative associations.

I’m not implying you do. What you do have is a sophist attitude to the runes that says they actually have no real meaning at all. You literally agreed with me that Harmony could be Disorder, and then volunteered that Truth is Illusion. And this isn’t Illuminated ‘creating a deep mystical synthesis’, this just ‘the meaning is whatever I can argue at the time’. Which frankly, seems a pointless game to play. 

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

But I am quite serious in the requirement of dissonance and in the negative effect on the entire outside of the circle/ring/necklace/whatever.

I think you have made a very fundamental mistake in the beginning, by trying to construct your entire argument around a binary division that was not meant to stand alone. Is music with Disorder be definition boring?  Maybe not if it has Movement and change, a little emotion, love or conflict. Maybe even mixes Form. 

and mostly, the terminology just becomes meaningless. A Disorder god isn’t even necessarily part Trickster, it’s a specific term in the Gloranthan context, which you seem to want to redefine until you can apply it to literally anything you like and is thus meaningless. 
Which might be a clever Trick, but is ultimately nothing but an empty Illusion that destroys, not creates, meaning. 

[davecake]

On Arkat - I was interested in if there was a distinct source for him dying 7 times, as specific number. He is mentioned as a ‘kaelith’ in the Xeotam dialogues, one who has entered the Underworld and returned, which means the question of his death is “more semantics than substance”, seven sounds quite plausible - but is there a specific reference to that number somewhere?

[Joerg]

25 minutes ago, davecake said:

On Arkat - I was interested in if there was a distinct source for him dying 7 times, as specific number. He is mentioned as a ‘kaelith’ in the Xeotam dialogues, one who has entered the Underworld and returned, which means the question of his death is “more semantics than substance”, seven sounds quite plausible - but is there a specific reference to that number somewhere?

There are seven participants in the Troll Rebirth rite, and all seven but Arkat cried out in pain... Source: the Jonstown Compendium excerpt on trolls that Minaryth used to convey a cunningly hidden message, part of Troll Pak or Troll Gods.

Arkat seems to have been a collective of seven individuals or individual bodies at this time, or a hero and six or seven companions so close that they easily got mistaken for the hero himself with the hero light on. (Or all of that.)

But yes, I think Arkat may have discovered the backdoor from Hell early on in his career, possibly already as Seshnegi Man-of-All. As a Brithini soldier, he would have been resurrected in case of a lethal accident in battle, but I don't think that would count as being a kaelith.

We know that Hofstaring had practical experience with slipping back from Hell before he led the Sartarite hosts in the Starbrow Rebellion - he was a kaelith by Xeotam's definition. And it seems like nobody counted the number of times that Hofstaring used that backdoor - what we learn about him instead is that he had also mastered the quest of avoiding aging - a feat he shared with Jar-eel (and possibly Hon-eel and Hwarin Dalthippa).

 

While entering the Underworld during a heroquest counts as "technically dead", I think there is a difference between going there through a ritual and entering on Grandpa Mortal's path due to enemy interaction. Being counted as a kaelith might require first at least one successful quest into the Underworld and then an untimely death through heroic exposure.

 

This kaelith ability might be a trickster power...

[davecake]

1 minute ago, Joerg said:

There are seven participants in the Troll Rebirth rite, and all seven but Arkat cried out in pain... Source: the Jonstown Compendium excerpt on trolls that Minaryth used to convey a cunningly hidden message, part of Troll Pak or Troll Gods.

That theory would mean he died more than seven times, so its obviously not what I'm looking for.

2 minutes ago, Joerg said:

But yes, I think Arkat may have discovered the backdoor from Hell early on in his career, possibly already as Seshnegi Man-of-All.

Certainly some references say becoming a Man-of-All involved a heroquest to the Courts of Silence, or it could have been something else. Gerlant and Talor and Jonat are all also named as Kaelith (though it could be something else - Jonat travelled to the Underworld otherwise, and Talor too was brought back in a Lightbbringers Quest.)

[Joerg]

 

3 minutes ago, davecake said:

Certainly some references say becoming a Man-of-All involved a heroquest to the Courts of Silence, or it could have been something else. Gerlant and Talor and Jonat are all also named as Kaelith (though it could be something else - Jonat travelled to the Underworld otherwise, and Talor too was brought back in a Lightbbringers Quest.)

That leaves Gerlant's hell experiences. In all likelihood before he took over from the Gbaji-disease-ravaged previous dynasty as King of Seshnela.

As far as I know, neither Hrestol nor Faralz had an underworld experience before they emerged as knights men-of-all. Hrestol's road to Ifttala had a number of symbolic encounters that slipped his quest slowly from the mundane to the divine realm, but no underworld experience there either before he slew Ifttala. Only after doing so, Hrestol was forcibly sent into the underworld, too, and it took the quest of his father Froalar for him to be re-released among the living, under the conditions of Hrestol going into exile and Froalar marrying Seshna Likita (fathering the twin children Ylream and Nebrola).

[scott-martin]

52 minutes ago, Joerg said:

 

That leaves Gerlant's hell experiences. In all likelihood before he took over from the Gbaji-disease-ravaged previous dynasty as King of Seshnela.

As far as I know, neither Hrestol nor Faralz had an underworld experience before they emerged as knights men-of-all. Hrestol's road to Ifttala had a number of symbolic encounters that slipped his quest slowly from the mundane to the divine realm, but no underworld experience there either before he slew Ifttala. Only after doing so, Hrestol was forcibly sent into the underworld, too, and it took the quest of his father Froalar for him to be re-released among the living, under the conditions of Hrestol going into exile and Froalar marrying Seshna Likita (fathering the twin children Ylream and Nebrola).

This flights wifi is glitchy as hell (thanks gremlins) but it suddenly strikes me that moa might have developed a kind of serial transmigration model for each caste you live out and ultimately outgrow. If so A might have become several personas and symbolically died in however many of these incarnations he passed before jumping to the call of the pagan sword god. Then these past selves would cloud his trajectory until palangio smashes the system.

 

this might also be a bridge to the HMKT work of ritual ego death, severing the personality from entanglements, etc. of course all of this may simply be Stygian innovation now lost.

 

i don’t think the boys of malkonwal did a lot of explicit underworld questing on their own but this might be prime serpent king praxis, go into the pit and come out a king.